Five timber smugglers arrested in Doda

The police on Thursday arrested five persons from the Bhaderwah tehsil of Doda district in Jammu and Kashmir during a crackdown against timber smugglers. "Acting on a tip off, we conducted raids and arrested five timber smugglers from the Halyan-Runta village in Bhaderwah belt of the district around 3 am on Thursday," superintendent of police Roop Raj said.

The police on Thursday arrested five persons from the Bhaderwah tehsil of Doda district in Jammu and Kashmir during a crackdown against timber smugglers.

"Acting on a tip off, we conducted raids and arrested five timber smugglers from the Halyan-Runta village in Bhaderwah belt of the district around 3 am on Thursday," superintendent of police Roop Raj said.

The smugglers have been identified as Omar Din, Zakir Hussain, Adil Hussain, Kapoor Chand and Tariq Hussain, he said.

Around 45 timber scants and 25 felled green cedar trees worth several lakhs were seized from a village in the Bhaderwah belt during a raid on Tuesday.

The timber extracted from the green Cedar trees was illegally cut from nearby forest compartments No- 49 and 51 of Puneja block and was being shifted and kept at villages Runta and Halyan.

A case under section 6 of the Forest Act 379 RPC has been registered here, the SP added.

The crackdown was launched by police after a complaint was made by a local photo journalist, who clicked pictures of the loot of green gold in Runta-Halyan in Puneja block of Bhadarwah Forest Division and was attacked by the smugglers.